The Renaissance (Gobineau book)

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

The Renaissance (French: La Renaissance) is an ensemble of five philosophical dialogues authored by Arthur de Gobineau in 1877 and which earned him the Institute's Bordin Prize. The separate parts bear the following names: Savonarola, Cesare Borgia, Julius II, Leo X and Michael Angelo. Around these a great number of other historical personages are grouped.[lower-alpha 1] The Renaissance expressed the author's belief that the laws which bind the weak do not bind, and ought not to bind, the strong.

History

The Count of Gobineau's first intention had been to illuminate with an individual commentary each of the five parts of his book. Then, changing his mind, he filed in his papers the introductions he had written. They were published posthumously under the title La fleur d'or ("The Golden Flower").

George Meredith, writing to John Morley on February 1, 1906, said: "If you have not read the 'Renaissance' of the Comte de Gobineau, you will find pleasant relaxation in it. The ideas in the heads of the characters of the time are given with masterly sureness, in refreshing French."[1] The book was highly praised by critics. "The age and the people live in these scenes with extraordinary reality," one critic remarked about Gobineau's dialogues on the renaissance. "From them may be learned what Gobineau was—an aristocrat in mind, a proud and lonely pagan, a true child of the renaissance. Scholar, poet, sculptor and diplomatist, he understood the aims and thoughts of that period as no man of later ages has understood them."[2]

The Renaissance was a major literary success in Germany[lower-alpha 2] and was translated into several languages.[lower-alpha 3]

Adaptations

  • Adapted for the stage and performed by Karl Bender in 1903.[3]
  • Adapted into a radio play and performed by Curt Elwenspoek among others in 1927.

Notes

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Other historical personages also appeared: Machiavelli, Raphael, Titian and outside Italy, King Charles VIII of France and the diplomat-historian Philippe de Commines.
  2. ↑ The book was translated several times into German, notably by Ludwig Schemann (president of the Gobineau Society), by the journalist Bernhard Jolles, by Adalbert Luntowski and by the latinist Hanns Floerke.
  3. ↑ Including English, Italian (by the musician Giuseppe Vannicola), Hebrew (by the poet Jacob Steinberg), Hungarian and Spanish translations.

Citations

  1. ↑ Meredith, William Maxse (1912). Letters of George Meredith, 2. London: Constable & Company, p. 576.
  2. ↑ "La Renaissance," The Burlington Magazine, Vol. XXVIII, No. 153 (1915), p. 108.
  3. ↑ Based upon the translation of Ludwig Schemann. See "Die Renaissance": histor. Scenen vom Grafen Arthur Gobineau, Dt. von Ludwig Schemann; zur Rezitation bearb. von Carl Bender; 2 Rezitations-Abende von Hofschauspieler Carl Bender. Dornheim (1903).

References

Edschmid, Kasimir (1923). "Gobineau et la Renaissance," Europe, Vol. III, No. 9, pp. 81–86.
Ferguson, Wallace Klippert (2006). Renaissance in Historical Thought. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Gaulmier, Jean (1980). "Introduction." In: Gobineau, Arthur de, La Renaissance: Scènes Historiques. Paris: Garnier: Flammarion.
Levy, Oscar (1913). "The Life Work and Influence of Count Arthur de Gobineau." In: Gobineau, Arthur de, The Renaissance. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, pp. iii–lxvi.
Mistler, Jean (1947). "Introduction." In: Gobineau, Arthur de, La Renaissance. Monaco: Éditions du Rocher.
Seillière, Ernest (1908). "Un Différend Littéraire entre la France et l’Allemagne. Les ‘Scènes Historiques de la Renaissance’ par le Comte de Gobineau," Revue Germanique, Quatrième Année, No. 1, pp. 15–39.
Schuré, Édouard (1908). Précurseurs et Révoltés. Paris: Perrin, pp. 283–323.
Stein, Heinrich von (1881). "La Renaissance. Scènes Historiques par le Comte de Gobineau. Paris 1877," Bayreuther Blätter, Vol. V, pp. 13–20.
Tetel, Marcel (1978). "Gobineau et Rabelais: Symbolisme et Renaissance." In: Symbolism and Modern Literature: Studies in Honor of Wallace Fowlie. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, pp. 113–29.
Uekermann, Gerd (1985). Renaissancismus und Fin de siècle: Die italienische Renaissance in der deutschen Dramatik der letzten Jahrhundertwende. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

External links

Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 346: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).

Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=The_Renaissance_(Gobineau_book)&oldid=727490057"